


We meet again...

by theprydonian_archivist



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Action/Adventure, Character Study, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Episode: s04e17 The End of Time (1), Episode: s04e18 The End of Time (2), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 00:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7198433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprydonian_archivist/pseuds/theprydonian_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 11th Doctor is happy travelling with Amy & Rory, but there's something else lurking around the corner...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No 10, sorry! Also, might have some spoilers from series 5, along with the ones below and the generic earlier stuff. And there's a bit of swearing too.
> 
> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Prydonian](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Prydonian). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [The Prydonian collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/theprydonian/profile).

  
Author's note: Okay, it's a work in progress so I'm uploading the chapters I have done and will have to just keep going as I get done.<br />It's a slow start Master-wise, but give it a chance and it gets going :)  


* * *

“I am covered in slime!” Amy shouted, as she stood in the middle of a field on a relatively unknown planet with the Doctor and Rory.  
“Yes, I think we all are,” the Doctor replied, wiping slime out of his hair, and then flicking it on to the floor.  
“It stinks.”  
“Well done, Rory.” The Doctor walked towards the crater that had once been an alien who, after swallowing Rory, the Doctor had popped with the right frequency on the sonic screwdriver.  
“Yeah well if you hadn’t gotten yourself swallowed, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess!” Amy said, turning to Rory. “Look at the state of me!”  
“Ladies…” the Doctor said, warningly, and with a smirk at the expression on Rory’s face.   
“Doctor, what are we gonna do! You said we can’t go in the TARDIS for another couple of hours!”  
“Well… an hour, maybe. Maybe two, I don’t know! She’s a bit… upset.”  
“She’s not the only one! This is the second time I’ve been covered in gunk because of you.”  
The Doctor sniggered.  
“What!?”   
“Just gunk… it’s such a good word, and so under-used.”  
“What are we going to do?!”  
The Doctor sighed, “There’s a civilisation over there, they get the occasional holiday-maker here, I’m sure there’s a hotel.”  
“Oh, and what are we gonna say in that hotel?” Rory said.  
“That you fell in a swamp and we had to pull you out, then my craft had an accident, so could we please hire a suite and have a shower?” The Doctor responded, as if that was the most normal thing in the world. “Durh.”  
He set off towards where he said the civilisation was, then turned back to Amy and Rory, “well come on then!”  
Amy pushed Rory forward and then they followed the Doctor. 

“Okay, so we have a suite with one double bathroom, and one single bathroom. Is that okay?”  
The receptionist was large, purple, and had strange ridges running down her back. She also had a hole in her desk, and a bucket underneath to catch the black slime which was running out of her mouth. Amy and Rory stood staring at her,  
“It looks like a cross between a squid and a stegosaurus!” Rory whispered to Amy, who giggled and then said  
“Don’t be so rude!”  
The receptionist looked up at them, “is that okay?” She repeated, sounding slightly irritable at having to repeat herself. Amy looked at the Doctor, who had his eyes closed, and then nudged him. “Doctor?”  
He opened his eyes and smiled, “Yeah, that’s great. How much is that?”  
“That’ll be 70 credits.”  
“70 credits… right, great, put it on my card.”  
He handed over a card, and Rory half expected it to be rejected, but then the receptionist handed it back along with a card to get in the room.   
“Thank you very much.” The Doctor said, and took the cards.   
“Have a nice day.” The receptionist said, and then looked back up. “There are shampoos and towels, spare clothes and stuff in the bathrooms. Most people just nick them, but you look like you’ll need to use them.”  
“Thanks again!” The Doctor said, and they walked towards the stairs. 

Amy took the door-card from the Doctor and said “floor 22? We’re walking to floor 22? Why don’t we just take the lift?!”  
“If I’ve learnt anything in my 107 years, it’s to never trust Loconihan lifts.”  
As if on cue, there was a large grinding sound from the lift shaft next to them, and then an alarm went off. Amy and Rory turned to look at the receptionist, who sighed and said over the intercom “Lift 3 is broken again… 4th time this week. Someone come fix it.”   
They turned back round, laughing, and abruptly stopped when the Doctor stood with his head in his hands.  
“Doctor, what’s wrong?”  
He shook his head, “Hmm? Oh, nothing… headache. I’ll be fine.”  
“Oh, okay then.” Amy said, trying to sound less worried than she was as the Doctor started bouncing up the stairs again. She glanced at Rory, and then followed again.  
“So you’ve been here before?”  
“Erm, yeah. It was a long time ago though.”  
“Were you on your own? It doesn’t seem like the kind of place to come on your own, too… I dunno, sociable?”  
“No, I was with a friend. A very old friend.”  
“A friend?”  
“Yes, I have a few friends… but I mean, he’s… gone now.”  
“Oh, I’m sorry.”  
“No, it’s okay. Well… ah! Here’s our room!”   
The Doctor swiped the key through the lock and then barged into the room.   
“Okay double bathroom there, that’s yours.” He pointed to one door. “My room is here. Take your time, we have ages.”  
“You sure?” Amy said.   
“Yeah, we’ve got the whole of time and space on our side.”  
“I didn’t mean…”   
But the Doctor had already left and gone into the bathroom on the left.   
“What’s wrong with him?” Rory said, but Amy shook her head and walked towards the bathroom door where the Doctor was. She pushed gently on the door, but it didn’t open. She looked at Rory again, who shrugged.  
“Maybe he’s got a migraine?”  
“Do Timelord’s even get migraines?”  
“Well I dunno do I? I’m not some kind of expert!” 

The Doctor was stood in the bathroom, with his head resting against the mirror, the coolest surface he could find. His jacket and bowtie were lying on the floor behind him and his head was pounding. He never got headaches, what was happening? He heard a knock at the door, and jumped, hitting his head off the mirror and swearing loudly.   
“Doctor, are you okay?” It was Amy. Why couldn’t she just leave him alone sometimes?   
“Yeah, I’m fine.”  
“Just you seem…”  
“I’ve just got a headache. Nothing a shower can’t fix!” he said, turning on the spray. 

Amy knew when she wasn’t needed, and sighed turning away from the Doctor’s bathroom door and walking past Rory.   
“Whatever, if he’s going all moody, he can be all moody. I wanna get this out of my hair.” 

About an hour later, the Doctor was clean, his clothes had been washed and dried, and he was getting dressed. His head was still pounding, and it was getting louder, and worse, to the point where he was losing his balance. He put his head against the mirror again, closing his eyes against the light, and the pain. And when he closed his eyes it seemed to get louder, and he could make out the rhythm. 4 beats, _dun-dun-dun-dun_ ; but it couldn’t be. He stood completely still, and tried to ignore the constant, stabbing pain that made him feel like his head was about to split in two. _Dun-dun-dun-dun_. Maybe it was just his heartbeats? Didn’t they get louder when you were in pain, or scared, and he was both? You could feel them pulsing through your arteries, _dun-dun-dun-dun_ ; but no, this was different. This was a beat, a drumbeat. But how?  
It got so loud now, so unbearable, and his hearts were beating so fast that he could rule them out, frantic compared to the steady 4 beat rhythm that was still pulsing through his head? How could someone bear this for so many years? And why was it hitting him now? _Dun-dun-dun-dun_. The Doctor prayed for it to stop, but it didn’t, he hit his head against the mirror, it didn’t work, the drums still beat. And then… something else; something made the hairs on the back of his neck stick up, something forces his eyes open, and stopped him blinking at the bright light in the bathroom. He looked in the mirror, and his hearts skipped a beat when he saw who was sitting on the side of the bath behind him.   
He blinked into the mirror, and the man was still there, and then he spun around.

The man was definitely there, he was definitely in the Doctor’s bathroom, sat with a slight smirk on his face, his blond hair still slightly messy, his clothes still torn and frayed, exactly like the Doctor had last seen him. But it couldn’t be!   
“Is that the welcome I get? After all I did?”  
“Wh… how? What!?”  
The Master stood up, and laughed. “Stop stammering, I thought maybe your new regeneration would have stopped that particular irritating trait.”  
The Doctor’s mouth was dry, and he choked out “How are you here?”  
The Master tutted, “Isn’t that obvious? I let you listen to the drums. You heard them. You went inside my head, and that made a tiny link. I’ve spent all the time I had in prison on Gallifrey, stuck in the time lock building up a connection, forging something to bring back to see you again.”  
“Why?”  
“I saved your life!”  
the Doctor shook his head, “I know.”  
“And what did you do in return? Did you thank me? Or did you just lie there, so thankful you were alive?”  
The Doctor looked down, the shame he had kept down building up inside of him. “I know.”  
“I was supposed to be the selfish one! I could have saved myself and let you die! But no, the one gracious act I do! The one time I help someone else! And you FORGET ME!”  
There was so much venom in the Master’s voice; it made the Doctor so ashamed, but he managed to say. “I still died.”  
The Master laughed, “You still died? You get to live on! You get to still travel! Look at you, you regenerated!”   
“AND YOU COULD HAVE REGENERATED FOR ME!” 

Amy and Rory looked at each other, shocked, as they heard the Doctor shout in the bathroom. Amy jumped up and ran to the door, knocking on it and shouting the Doctor’s name, to no response.  
“What’s he doing?”  
“I dunno, he’s… talking. Shh!” Amy said, and they both stood at the door, trying to listen, trying to see who was in there with him.

“Oh this again? Really?” the Master said, sighing. “I came back didn’t I?”  
“You left me!”  
“You found someone else, like you always do!”  
“You died rather than come with me! What did you want me to do? Keep going alone, wallowing in your memory? You left me on my own twice!”  
“I saved your life the second time I ‘left you’ Did you even try to get me back? ”  
“I knew I couldn’t! You were stuck in the time war!”  
“Did you ever think about me though? No!”  
The Doctor laughed bitterly, “Of course I did! I think about you all the time.”  
“That’s a lie.”  
“How do you know?”  
“Because to get here I had to force my way through your memories, through your consciousness. I had to wait until you thought about me, and felt strong emotion. That’s why it’s here. we came here, remember? Back when we were kids?”  
“Of course I remember. But you can’t be here.”  
The Master laughed again. “Yeah, right.” There was silence for a couple of minutes.   
“Can you get rid of this headache now, please? It’s driving me mad.”  
“It’s been there for what? An hour, two at most? And it’s driving you mad already. How long did I have to put up with it?”  
“You’re stronger than me.”  
“No I’m not.”   
“You embraced it.”  
“If I get rid of it, then I’m gone. Choose.” 

The Doctor slid to the floor, and the Master came and sat next to him.  
“You still managed to die then.”  
“I had to save Wilf.”  
“The old guy?”  
“Yeah. He got stuck in the radiation chamber you forgot to turn off.”  
“Would be my fault.”  
The Doctor laughed, “I do like this body though. I think.”  
“You think?”  
“Yeah.”  
“You’ve still got stupid hair.”  
“You still look like an emo.”   
“Oh really?”   
The Doctor sighed, “How are you here? Really, because a psychic link and some emotion isn’t enough to drag you back?”  
“I’m just a projection.”  
“So I’m going mad?”  
“No, I am here, but I’m not. I’m sort of… I dunno how to explain.”  
“It’s still not enough though, even with a brain like yours.”  
“Yeah, well, something’s happening, I could feel the link getting stronger without me amplifying it, something massive is about to happen, or change, or not happen.”  
“What do you mean by that?”  
“I dunno. But there’s something wrong with time. You feel it, I feel it. That unease. That shudder you get without anything happening to cause it.”   
“I know.” The Doctor looked at the Master, “Something is wrong, time is changing.”  
The Master smirked, “I hoped you’d say that.”

“Who’s he talking to?” Rory hissed at Amy.   
“I don’t know! I dunno what’s going on! I think there might be something wrong with him.”  
“You think!?”  
“Rory! What if he’s ill? What if there's someone in there hurting him? We need to help him!”  
“How?! The door’s locked!”  
“I dunno, knock it down!?”  
“I can’t knock down a door, look at me!”  
“Pathetic!”  
“We could go ask the… thing.”  
“Lady! Stop being so rude about them just coz they don’t look like you! It’s racist!”  
“RACIST!?”  
“Shh!” They both put their ears back to the door.

“What do you mean by that?”  
“If I can get through this far, then something is changing.”  
“Well, yes, I guessed that much.”  
“Planets in the sky.”  
“I’m sorry?”  
“She doesn’t remember.”  
“Who?”  
“Amy, your… bird out there. Well, she’s not yours is she?”  
“She’s my friend. So is Rory.”  
“She’ll leave you. She chose someone else. Just like they all do.”  
“Shut up.”  
“Sarah-Jane left for her adopted son, the freak left you, Martha has Mickey, Rose has the other Doctor, Wilf has his family, Donna has a new bloke and doesn’t even remember you.”  
“You leave them alone!”  
“I can’t touch them!”  
“I know you!”  
“I know. And I can see in your head. She’s gonna leave, and you’ll be on your own again.”  
“Shut up!” The Doctor said, through gritted teeth.  
“What if I can help?”  
“How, you’re stuck.”  
The Master groaned, “Planets in the sky!”  
“So she can’t remember the daleks, what of it?! Oh…”  
“Finally, it hit’s him.”  
“Time is changing…”  
“Yeah… come on, think about it.”  
“But I can’t.”  
“Of course you can! You’re the last Timelord, apart from me, and frankly, I could make a reappearance.”  
“But I’d have to…”  
“Just a tiny rip in time, there are so many already that it won’t hurt. And I can help fix it! think about it, the team, back together.”   
“Without the drums, you’re scary.”   
The Master growled, “Do you want to be on your own for eternity?!”  
“But if it never happened, the drums will still be there.”  
“You always said you could help me! And, I’ll be able to remember this, just… slightly, tiny memory. But we retain everything that happened to us, even if we didn’t live it. I’ll know it’s true. I’ll know that you can help me! Just please, Doctor.”  
“I can’t...”  
“I SAVED YOUR LIFE!”  
“And I can’t save yours.”

The Master stood up and pulled the Doctor to his feet.   
“Then what is the point of you?”  
The Doctor looked into the Master’s eyes and knew the game the Master was playing, repeating what his companions had said, the best kind of emotional blackmail from his oldest friend and his deadliest enemy.  
“Doctor, help me.”   
The Master put his forehead to the Doctor’s, and the Doctor felt the drums leaving, and at the same time felt the Master’s pain, but felt his own pain lessening. He put his arms round the Master, and was surprised that the Master’ didn’t pull away, and instead put one arm round the Doctor’s shoulders. The Doctor put his head on the Master’s shoulder, trying to hold back the tears as the link lessened and the only other Timelord in existence left him once again. When he stepped back, the Master was gone, and out of frustration he kicked the sink, and shouted and swore as loud as he could.

He heard Amy banging on the door again, and he wrenched it open, determination taking over. Amy stopped mid-sentence as she saw the fire in the Doctor’s eyes, and Rory stepped back on sight of the usually composed man looking so terrifying.   
“We’re leaving.”  
“But you said… what about the TARDIS? Shouldn’t we like, have breakfast first, you look… like you could do with calming down.”  
“I said we’re leaving.”  
Rory piped up, “What about the TARDIS overheating, you said it could rip through time if it went off…”  
“Either you come with me, or you stay here. But I’m not promising that I’m coming back. Alright?”   
The Doctor ran out of the room and down the stairs, with Amy and Rory following slightly behind him.   
As they went past, the receptionist looked up, “Left the gas on?”  
“Something like that! Thanks, it’s a lovely place!” Amy said hurriedly as she ran past.  
“Yeah, thanks!” Rory also said as he followed the other two.

When they reached the TARDIS the Doctor was already inside, and the engines were already starting; they both skidded insde, and panting, Amy looked up at the Doctor, “What, the hell, is going on?!”  
The Doctor looked up, and smiled slightly manically, “You might wanna hold on, coz this is gonna be a bit of a bumpy ride.”   
And as he said that, the TARDIS lurched, and Rory and Amy both fell to the floor as the Doctor ran round the console pressing various buttons and somehow managed to remain standing.   
“Did you have to pass a test to fly these things?”  
“Yep.”  
“You passed?!” Rory said, falling down again after just managing to get to his feet.  
“Nope.”  
“Well isn’t that, illegal?”   
“Who is actually going to stop me?!”  
Amy was really worried by now, “Doctor, please tell me what’s going on.”  
“No time,” the Doctor laughed.   
“I’m worried that you’re doing something rash or… bad.”  
“I can do whatever I like, I make the rules.”  
“But do you though?” Amy said, trying to stand up as they hurtled through time and space.

The TARDIS steadied, and everything was calmer; Rory and Amy stood up, and joined the Doctor looking out of the window.  
“What’s that?” Amy said, and the Doctor smirked.  
“It’s a cold star.”  
“I thought they weren’t real?” Rory said.  
“I never said that. Unlikely doesn’t equal impossible.” He smiled, “It’s about to supernova.”  
“So why are we here?!” Amy said, beginning to panic.  
“Because we’re gonna fly into it.”  
“Doctor, you’re going to get us killed!”  
As the star got brighter and started to expand, the Doctor laughed.  
“Trust me.”  
As the Doctor pulled a leaver and the TARDIS hurtled towards the light, Rory and Amy grabbed each other’s hands, and tried to believe that the Doctor hadn’t gone mad, and that he could be trusted.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tah-dah! Now we get going properly.

  
Author's note: Tah-dah! Now we get going properly.  


* * *

They all came round at once, the Doctor jumping to his feet, Amy staggering, and Rory just trying to sit up without being sick.  
“What are you playing at!?”  
“Amy, you need to stay in the TARDIS.”  
“Why should I?”  
“Because this is really dangerous.”   
“THIS IS?! THIS IS DANGEROUS! You just flew us into a supernova! You could have gotten us killed!”  
“Ah, yes, that. Well… I didn’t, did I?”  
“Oh, that makes it so much better, did you know we’d be okay!?”  
“If I say yes, will you stop shouting.”  
“Oh my God you didn’t! There better be a brilliant reason for this, Doctor!”  
“There is.”  
“Well come on then, spill!”  
“I can’t, not yet,” he looked at his watch. “Because I need to be out there right now; but please, stay here. Trust me.”  
“Every time you say that, something bad is about to happen.”  
“Everything is going to be alright.”  
“And that too.”  
“Amy, I need to go out there, and I can’t, until you give me your word that you’ll stay in here.”  
Amy looked into the Doctor’s eyes and saw how important whatever was going on was to the Doctor. “Okay, fine.”  
“I’ll explain everything when I’m back,” he said, hugging her. He looked over at Rory, “Oh and I think you might need to look after him.”   
Amy looked over her shoulder at Rory, and by the time she turned back to the Doctor, the TARDIS doors were shutting behind him. she sighed and went to sit down on the chair, where Rory joined her after gingerly getting to his feet.  
“Amy, what’s going on?”  
“I dunno, I really don’t.”  
“You scared?”  
“A bit… why?”  
“Just because I’m terrified.”   
Amy grabbed Rory’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’ll be okay. It always is.”

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS doors to semi-darkness on Earth, he could smell and taste the pollution from the cars and planes and combustion. He could smell something else too, someone else. The wasteland was all too familiar, and this time, with no prophecy in place, he didn’t know how it would end, he didn’t have a plan, he didn’t know why he was following the instructions of someone who had tried to kill him more times than he’d heard his name. This time, he was the one to pick up the metal pipe, and slam it on the bin. It echoed across the wasteland, while the hair on the back of his neck stood up; and then he heard the sound of pebbles crunch behind him, so quiet that if his senses hadn’t been on edge he wouldn’t’ve heard.  
“Isn’t that my job?”

The Doctor turned round, with a massive shudder of déjà-vu, to see the Master, standing behind him, silhouetted in the moonlight. They both stood staring at each other, the cold of the air causing their breath to condense in front of them, for a long time.  
“You look different.”  
“I regenerated.”  
“I guessed. How?”  
This was blunt, and yet, the Doctor could sense something else under the usual mocking, madness and sarcasm. Something long lost.  
“It’s… difficult to explain.”  
“Did one of your companions shoot you?”  
The Doctor couldn’t help but laugh, “No.”  
“Hmm.”  
“You need to listen to me…”  
“I always need to listen to you, and you know what?”  
“No, really, I know how this plays out. I know your plans, I’ve lived this, and we both die…”  
“I never listen to you!”  
“Both of us! Dead! Is that what you want?”

The Master started the walk towards the Doctor, laughing, and the Doctor stood his ground. The Master started to generate electricity from his hands, and the Doctor knew what was coming, the eerie familiarity combined with the cold was enough to make him shudder. Then he got hit, again, with the lightning bolts, once, twice, both hands. The Master caught him as he fell to the floor, gasping, but it wasn’t going to play out the same way. The Doctor was playing a different game this time, and before the Master pushed him away, the Doctor had punched him squarely in the jaw.   
And this took the Master by surprise. Massively. Enabling the Doctor to get in another punch, and squirm out of the way, before the Master hit back. But he hit back good – life-force forgotten, he kicked the Doctor – he felt the boots collide with his leg as he tried to get up, then the Master was upon him and was punching him with rage and fury unknown to the Doctor.  
Unknown until then. 

Amy stood up and opened the TARDIS door, ignoring Rory’s worried “Amy, what are you doing, he said don’t go outside!”  
“I’m not going outside, idiot. I’m just… looking.”   
She gasped as she saw what was happening, and Rory got up to join her, his arm round her shoulders as they watched from the TARDIS door at the two men fighting in the dust.  
“What the hell!?” Rory said, and Amy shook her head. She’d never seen a fight where it was apparent that either fighter could die, something that was life or death, and was torn between helping and listening to the Doctor’s orders.   
“Should we help?” Rory said, wincing as the blond guy kicked the Doctor in the crotch, and Amy looked at him. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do!” 

The Master’s failed resurrection hadn’t left enough life in him to overcome a physical fight with someone stronger, closer to regenerative strength, and soon the Doctor had him on the floor – but unlike his own merciless technique, the Doctor stopped – still as cowardly as ever when it really mattered. Both of them were panting, wincing as they felt the bruises already forming.  
“I need you to hear me out, but not here, we need to be safe – come inside.”  
The Master coughed, and tried to get up, “No.”  
“Please!” The Doctor growled, his aggression getting the better of him, and the Master smirked.   
“I like this regeneration.”  
The Doctor bit back his anger, and extended his hand to help the Master up.  
“What if I refuse?”  
“I don’t think you’re in a state to.”  
The Master sighed, and took his hand, lifting himself up. Everywhere hurt. He hadn’t counted on that reaction, the Doctor never resorted to violence. At least his last regeneration didn’t. So for good measure he kicked the Doctor in the shins, and then he was the one on the floor. 

And now Amy did run out of the TARDIS, Rory following her trying to hold her back, the door shutting behind them. She had to help to Doctor, but Rory’s had was still in hers, and he had stopped.  
“Amy wait, the Doctor said it was dangerous. And, look at him. He’s not gonna be able to come back from a fight like that with more strength. They’re not superheroes.”   
So she stopped, and again stood watching. Rory tried to open the TARDIS door, “Ah.”  
“What?”  
“We’re locked out.”  
“Let me try.” Amy pushed the door, but it remained closed.  
“Oh dear.” They both leaned against the TARDIS.  
“He’s gonna kill us, isn’t he.”  
“Hopefully he won’t be in a state to…”

The Doctor looked up into the Master’s face, shocked. But he smirked and held out his hand to pull the Doctor up off the floor.  
“What was that for?!” the Doctor asked, scandalised, as they both stood, adrenaline fading, leaving them to feel the impact which the other had inflicted.  
“I’m not being the last one down.”  
“It’s always a competition with you isn’t it?”   
“And I always win. King of the wasteland!”  
The Doctor held back the déjà-vu once more, and distracted himself by cracking his shoulders, “The TARDIS is just over there. Can you make it?”  
“Probably.”

The Master took a step and winced.  
“What’s wrong?”  
“What’s wrong? You just beat absolute shit out of me!”  
“You started it.”  
“How?!”  
“Er… life force.”  
“Oh, right, yeah.”  
The Doctor tried to support the Master up, and he flinched away from the physical contact. The Doctor tutted.   
“For once, let me help. You asked for it, after all.”  
“What do you mean by that?”  
“I said I’d explain in the TARDIS,”  
So the Master let the Doctor help him, and they ended up supporting each other across the uneven ground, both being pretty much as badly injured as the other one. When they reached the door, Amy and Rory were stood outside it trying to look casual.  
“I thought I told you to stay inside.”  
“Yeah, well… what the hell is going on? Who is he, and why, after that display are you bringing him inside?”  
The Master grimaced, “Where do you find these people?”  
The Doctor tried not to smile, and clicked his fingers making the TARDIS doors swing open. He helped the Master over to the chair, which he promptly collapsed on to, the Doctor dropping down on to the floor. Amy followed, a few paces behind with Rory, feeling pretty out of place. Something got to her about the man with the Doctor, and she didn’t know what – the way the Doctor looked at him was different than how he looked at anyone she knew, and she felt a twice of jealousy that she shouldn’t feel when her fiancé was standing right behind her.   
As they both sat, eyes closed, trying to cool down, calm down, ease the pain a bit; she continued to stare at the man. He looked gaunt, tired, and really pale. He had stubble, and his clothes – a hoody, black jeans and red t shirt – were all frayed and torn.   
“Time is rewriting itself.”

As the Master opened his un-swollen eye to look at the Doctor, he noticed the companion had stopped staring at him, and was now staring at the Doctor instead. Man, he liked his gingers.   
“What?”  
“I came back to get you, because you… see this has all happened before. In my last regeneration.”  
“My fault, I suppose?”  
“No.”  
“No?” the Master seemed almost disappointed, and the companion turned to glare at him, which made him smirk – until he realised that smirking hurt. His eyes flickered to the man standing behind the girl, holding her hand, and he raised his eyebrows while the man looked down at the floor. Well, obviously the girl had brought her boyfriend along for the ride. Bet the Doctor wasn’t happy about that.  
“I can show you.”  
The Master snorted, and closed his eye again. “You are not going in my head.”

The Doctor stood up, “But you’ll remember, it’ll be buried in there somewhere. Our past always is, even if you didn’t live it out, it’s still there – we see it all. You said so yourself.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“You came to see me. Well, you forged a psychic link and because time is all messed up you managed to get through to me. We were on Loco.”  
“You were on Loco?” He laughed, “I like Loco.”  
“Yeah, I know. I had thought about you and that meant that the link was completed, you got through to me, asked me to help.”  
The Master’s head was pounding, and he really didn’t want an open connection. He didn’t want the Doctor prowling round inside his head, not now, not ever.   
“That doesn’t sound like me.”  
“I can’t explain, I can only show you why you did it.”  
“No.”  
“Master, please.”

Amy stared at the Doctor; she wished he would tell her what the hell was going on, who this guy was, what was wrong with him, what had happened. But it was almost like she wasn’t there. And because the Doctor’s attention wasn’t fully on her, her attention wasn’t at all on Rory. And Rory knew it. He was still scared, and he recognised the man, he didn’t know why, or where from, he just did. He tried to tug on Amy’s hand, tell her that they should leave the room without using words, but she was engrossed in the Doctor, so he just stood and let her be jealous, at least she’d know how he felt. 

The Master sighed, he was too weak to argue, and the renewed use of his name sort of broke the resistance down; the Doctor walked over and sat down beside him.  
“I don’t want an open connection, nothing like that, I just want to show you what happened.”  
“The connection will be there though, as soon as you open it.”  
“It’s already there. It always has been, ever since we were kids. You used it without me even knowing that it still existed.”  
“Fine, whatever.”

The Doctor didn’t wait, didn’t confirm, he just put his hands on the Master’s head, and remembered. He remembered the fight on the wasteland… _“I had estates…”_ The talk of Gallifrey, the Master’s kidnap, picking up Wilf, the gate, the Master’s plans, Donna, _“I don’t know what I’d be without that noise.” “I wonder what I’d be without you.”_ Gallifrey rising, the reason for the drums, he remembered choosing who to shoot – _“Get out of the way”_ \- and instead shooting the machine. He remembered as Gallifrey fell, _“Get out of the way.”_ The Master’s final showdown before he vanished into the light, into the Time War and the timelock. 

Amy couldn’t see what was going on, what the men were sharing, and yet she could see that they were both uncomfortable with whatever it was. The Doctor was crying, the ‘Master’s’ eyes were also wet. She wanted to say something, to see it too, and yet, she just stood in the corner, feeling completely alone, not even noticing that Rory still had hold of her hand, not even acknowledging he existed. And that pain was as real to Rory as whatever pain the Doctor and the Master were experiencing. Rory guessed that this man was something different, something that they weren’t; he somehow knew that he was one of the Doctor’s own kind, and winced at the sudden realisation of how alone the Doctor was. He felt alone now, because it was as if he wasn’t there, especially with Amy distancing herself, but the Doctor had flown through a supernova to bring this man back, somehow he was more perceptive than Amy, and worked all of it out where Amy couldn’t. probably because Amy didn’t want it to be real, and yet Rory sort of did. If the Doctor had someone else, then when the time came, Amy wouldn’t feel as bad for leaving him. And then they could have that life from the dream world. But now, the two humans stood, holding hands, but feeling more alone than they ever had, as the Timelords shared something that humans never could. 

The Master knew he was crying, but couldn’t stop it. He knew the Doctor was crying, and that he also couldn’t stop it. All the sorrow and pain mingled into one; the loneliness, emptiness, madness, wounds – they shared it all, raw emotion from the lowest level of their brains collided and increased and the connection got stronger, but the drums dulled pounded less – and then it felt good to share, good to let go. And not only did he see the things that happened, but he lived them, remembered them, remembered his side of the story as well as the Doctor’s. And yet he didn’t understand, the Doctor was alive, and the prophecy wasn’t fulfilled, he hadn’t regenerated; but the story wasn’t over.  
 _“Knock, knock, knock, knock.”_  
He looked with the Doctor towards the sound, and saw the old man trapped in the still active radiation chamber, which was about to flood. He saw the Doctor shout, and felt how unfair this was. And then he felt the pain of the radiation all over his body, and that pain parked something else; reminded him of something else he needed to know. But not yet, as he saw himself reflected in a mirror behind the Doctor’s new regeneration, felt the conversation they had, and asked for help. His head felt even clearer, but not clear enough, and he turned the link on itself and began to press backwards.

Amy saw the Doctor shake, and heard him choke out “What… what are you doing?”  
“Doctor?”  
No response.   
Rory shook Amy's hand slightly,   
“Amy?”  
No response. 

The Doctor felt the dormant presence of the Master push through his shielding.  
 _Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt you.  
What do you want to see?_  
And then he remembered the Time War, the chaos, the hell that surrounded them at the end.   
I just need to know it’s true.  
You already know that it’s true!  
He remembered and felt leaving all of his species to die, knowing what would happen if he did – and knowing what would if he didn’t. He felt the familiar pain of genocide, and it felt strangely welcome to share the pain with someone else – it was obvious that the Master was feeling the same emotions he was as his consciousness was squirming too. They cried for the same thing, at the same time as the Master took in all of the detail of the Doctor’s decision, and then the Doctor remembered locking the war…

“ENOUGH!”  
The Doctor, the Master, Amy and Rory all jumped at the Doctor’s shout. Rory and Amy’s hands slipped apart, and she looked at him, trying to hide her surprise that he was still there. The Doctor jumped up, and moved away from the Master, both of them shutting down the shields which meant the other couldn’t get inside their heads.   
“I’m sorry; I just couldn’t let you see that.”  
The Master nodded.  
“So what do I do about the drumming?”  
The Doctor looked perplexed, “what?”  
“Well I remember that reality, but I didn’t live it. The drums are there and I… I can’t get rid of them. Unless I…”  
“You can’t.”   
The Doctor walked back over to the Master, and they put their heads together in the same way that they had in the bathroom, in a way that made Amy want to shout out, want to be the centre of the Doctor’s attention rather than this… bloke, wanted to share the Doctor’s pain. It should be her head that the Doctor’s was on, not this man who’d hurt him, tried to kill him in absolute rage only 10 minutes before. But she still said nothing, and instead went to stand with Rory, putting his arm around her shoulders, their hearts beating at almost at the same time, breathing almost together – their chests rising and falling just a fraction of a second apart.   
The Timelord’s heads were together, their eyes were closed, breathing in union, hearts beating in union, and they both heard the rhythm at once.

_Dun-dun-dun-dun._  
The heartbeat of a Timelord, it was obvious now.  
 _Dun-dun-dun-dun._

The Doctor turned away, “I don’t know. I’m sorry, I just don’t.”  
The Master shrugged. “Looks like I’m stuck here then; as mad and as dangerous as ever.” He sighed theatrically and the Doctor smiled, amused at the feigned resignation in the Master’s voice. Was he ‘stuck’ or was he choosing the stay? Just like he’d asked to in the other time line.  
“Yeah.”  
“But would you love me if I wasn’t mad or dangerous?”  
The Doctor chuckled, “guess I’ll never know.”  
“Hah, you admit you love me?”  
“You know what I mean." The Doctor felt something pushing against his mind and glared at the Master, “Oi, out.”  
“Ohh lovely, bye then.”  
“You know what I mean!” He repeated, “You’re ‘stuck’ here, remember?”  
“Great.” He opened his eyes again, sat forward, and winced.  
“Why do you want to be in there anyway?”  
“Just wanted to see if you loved me.”  
The Doctor shook his head and the Master smirked. “As if…”  
“I’m hungry.”  
“Oh, yes! I forgot. How about… pizza! Lets get pizza, I like pizza.”  
The Master smirked, “You’re paying.”  
“I’ve got no money.”  
“And you expect me to? I live in a wasteland!”  
“Lived – past tense!”  
“Semantics.”

Amy couldn’t stand and watch the friendly bickering any longer, jealousy taking over her as she realised that whoever this ‘Master’ was, the Doctor had known him longer than he’d known her, and he seemed much more important to the Doctor than she did. Especially as she was now lurking in a corner, probably forgotten, with Rory – her first choice second best, and his arm around her when right at this moment she wanted the Doctor’s to be there. And so she coughed, making all three men jump, and the Doctor and Master to look over at her.  
“Just, you know, incase you’d forgotten that we existed, we are still here, and we still don’t know what the hell is happening!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly smaller chapter (thank God!) and just about the Master this time :)<br />This is as far as I've gotten so far too, so yeah, there shall be more in the future.

  
Author's note: Slightly smaller chapter (thank God!) and just about the Master this time :)<br />This is as far as I've gotten so far too, so yeah, there shall be more in the future.  


* * *

The Master was stood in the bathroom looking in the mirror – bit more of a state than he expected. Black eye, check, bust lip, check, nose is still intact though, bruised shoulder, check – no idea when that happened, must’ve been when he fell, huge cut and bruise on back, check – he had hit a big lump of metal at some point, and not mentioning the state of his knuckles! Damn the Doctor was aggressive this time round! 

He’d been locked into the TARDIS while the Doctor and his two little followers went to buy pizza – apparently he didn’t trust them not to run into themselves while out getting in food; it could cause catastrophic damage to the whole timeline thing. So he thought he might as well use the alone time to get cleaned up. The fight probably didn’t help his personal hygiene, and he probably stank from living rough for all that time anytime; he took in his greasy hair and pale complexion in the mirror too, then looked at the razor, picked it up, then put it back down. Fuck it, the beard was staying. Even though it was just stubble – and blond at that, he kinda liked it, and he’d missed having a beard. His stomach rumbled, and he ignored it, still looking at his appearance in the mirror. He looked completely haggard compared to the Doctor, whose regeneration, even after a fight, still looked… he couldn’t think of the word, probably handsome or something, in a weird way. He didn’t look too bad though, he thought, as he winced at the ridiculously hot shower hitting his injuries. Oh look, bruised knees too! Great. He shook his head in the silence, trying to get rid of the constant dun-dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun. He growled, and then asked for some music – something that was obviously the girls choice came on, but it wasn’t bad, and the upbeat rhythm helped him drown out the beating slightly. He sighed again, and rested his head against the wall. Locked in the TARDIS while the Doctor and his female (obviously with her bloke trotting along in her wake) went gallivanting where ever they pleased; really? Is this what his life had come to? But after seeing what had happened in the timeline he’d forgotten, something had changed, the drums were slightly quieter, he could think clearer. And he could always escape if he wanted to, the Doctor was always preoccupied with someone else, something else; just not yet – he wanted to rest for a while, build up some trust and then crush it. Yeah, he told himself, it would hurt the Doctor more that way, and that was why he was staying. Not because everything was different now after connecting with his mind at even the slightest level - not because he had felt what the Doctor felt, not because he’d asked for help – coz he hadn’t really, not this him, not because he was lonely, and definitely not because they were they only two left and really, really not because, under all the hate, he needed the Doctor as much as the Doctor needed him. Really not that. He was the Master, he didn’t need anyone. 

And this shower was ridiculously hot! He got out into the bathroom, which was filled with steam, and noticed that the bruises had come up even more, and now that the layer of dust had gone off his legs, he noticed the grazes and scratches too. He smirked, the Doctor was gonna feel so guilty when he saw the damage he had done; then again, how much damage had he done back? Not that he cared at all, just, out of curiosity. He dried himself off and then headed to the TARDIS wardrobe, which is like a planet in itself. He flicked through the various items of clothing, rubbish, rubbish, what the hell was he thinking there? Why is there a clown suit… and a hedgehog? And they thought he was the mad one! He shook his head, and found the plainer section, and clothes which were pretty much exactly what he had anyway – black jeans, red t shirt. It was too warm in the TARDIS to need the hoody, but he grabbed it for good measure and threw it into his room when he went in to get changed. Still exactly the same as when they were kids, but a bit darker, it was like his personality had thrown itself into the room as soon as he got in there. The grate on the floor was familiar to his bare feet – the rest of the TARDIS seemed to have lost the grate with its newest regeneration and got glass floors instead, he smiled without thinking, and then shook his head – stop it, what’s wrong with you? 

He got changed, and then lay back on the bed, looking round. Dim lighting, dimmer switch to make it brighter if he needed it, CD player, a few books, mirror, guitar, wardrobe, drawers, and the cupboard; same as back then, and the familiarity felt strange, and because of that he didn’t open the cupboard doors – the things in there would be for another day, when he wanted to see photographs of his younger self smiling with the Doctor, see the things he picked up on the way that meant nothing to look at, but everything to feel… he was completely lost in memory when he heard the Doctor shout his name, a trace of worry and suspicion.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” He sat up gingerly, really feeling the muscle aches and bruises now that he’d been under hot water, and took one last look round. He might as well try to enjoy himself with his oldest, and best, enemy, and friend while he was here. Because he wouldn’t be for long; definitely not. He got to his feet, feeling the grate again on his soles and shoved on the trainers he’d picked up before heading out to the console room.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short one, but I thought I should write this down before I forgot about it. It looks like this story is gonna be a long one! :)

  
Author's note: Another short one, but I thought I should write this down before I forgot about it. It looks like this story is gonna be a long one! :)  


* * *

“Doctor I’m bored, can we go somewhere? Please?” Amy said, as the four of them sat around the console room looking dejected.  
The Doctor looked at the Master, “We’ll see. Where do you wanna go?”  
“Anywhere! Sight-seeing! I like sight-seeing.”  
“Are you gonna behave yourself?”  
The Master feigned shock, “Me? I always behave myself!”  
“Yeah, right.” The Doctor said, smiling slightly, and the Master shuddered.   
As he shuddered his body x-rayed so that everyone could see his skeleton, and then he shook his head and returned to normal.  
“Whoops.”  
Amy and Rory looked horrified, “How the hell did you do that!?” Rory said, and the Master laughed.  
“Stop it Master, you’re scaring the humans!”  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”  
“I wish you’d let me fix it.”  
“Look, you never know when you’re gonna need to shoot bolts of electricity at people. Or float up into the sky.”  
“You’re draining your life force, you’ll die if you keep doing it.”  
“Meh.”  
“You’d rather have your fun now than stay alive?”  
“Meh.”  
The Doctor shook his head, but didn’t grace the Master with a response.   
“Right, well, let’s press random destination and see where we end up then!” the Doctor said, pressing a few controls.   
“I just need to go get something; I’ll be back in a minute.”  
He wandered off into the TARDIS, leaving Amy and Rory with the Master for the first time. 

After a couple of seconds the Master couldn’t cope anymore.   
“Why are you looking at me like that?”  
Amy laughed, “Er, because you just x-rayed yourself.”  
“Yeah and…?”  
“What are you?”  
“He hasn’t told you?”  
Amy and Rory shook their heads.  
“I’m a Timelord.”  
“He said he was the only one.” Amy said, feeling slightly betrayed.  
“Yeah, well, I was dead. But whatever’s happening to the universe made a path for me to come back. I think.”  
“You think?”  
“Well, yeah, I didn’t officially live out the first one, so I don’t really know.”  
Rory looked up, “What’s with this whole time changing thing anyway?”  
The Master shook his head, “I dunno, but…”  
“But…?”  
“Nah, it’s nothing.”  
Rory looked at Amy, who shrugged.   
“Can I ask you something?”  
“Something else?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Why not?”  
“What’s his name?”  
The Master looked puzzled for a second, then responded “The Doctor?”  
“No, I mean, his real name.”  
“I don’t know.”  
“What? But he said you were like, really old friends.”  
“And…?”  
“I thought if he’d told anyone, it would be you.”  
“As if. Look, there is a lot of power in a name, you don’t tell anyone your real name, because you can be controlled by a name, as it is everything that you are all in one. So the Doctor would never trust me with his name, as I’m a psychopath and would definitely abuse that power.”  
“If you’re such a psychopath, why are you here?”  
“So I’m not off doing what only a psychopath does best elsewhere, blowing up galaxies and stuff I expect. He’s ‘looking after me’ or something.”  
Rory laughed, and Amy and the Master both looked at him, “What?”  
“I just realised who you look like!”  
“Who?”  
“Amy, you remember Harold Saxon? The prime minister?”  
“Oh my God yeah!”  
The Master rolled his eyes, “That’s because I was him.”  
“You… what?” Rory said, stopping mid-laugh.  
“That was an example of one of my psychopathic deeds. The Tochlafane. Killing the president because he got on my nerves, being in charge of the planet for a year before getting shot by my wife.” He grimaced at the memory and put his hand to his stomach. “Which, incidentally, really hurt.”  
“It wasn’t a year, though. It was only like… a day.”  
“Yeah, the Doctor reversed time. It’s pretty easy to mess with if you know what you’re doing.”  
“Wow.” Rory said, actually in slight awe.  
“Don’t let the Doctor hear you say that about my schemes. He won’t be best impressed.”  
“Yeah, I didn’t mean to say it out loud.”  
The Master laughed, “I like you.” And Rory looked flattered. 

The Doctor came running back into the console room, looking round to make sure everyone was still in one piece.   
“That took longer than I expected. Right if we’re going outside you need to put this on.”  
The Master curled his lip, “Really?”  
“You’re not running away to do something mad on my watch, no.”  
The Master groaned, but put the metal bracelet on.   
“What is that?” Amy asked, as the Doctor put a matching bracelet on.   
“If he goes more than a few feet away from me, he gets shocked. Stops him going mad and killing things, you see.”  
“Oh, wow, great.”  
“Told you I was a psycho.”   
The Master suddenly smirked, and the Doctor looked at him, concerned.  
“What?”  
The Master started to laugh, and then the Doctor yelled. “OW! What are you doing?!”  
The Master was in hysterics by this point.   
“Rassilon, that hurt. Don’t do that again!”  
The Doctor wandered off to the console still muttering under his breath, but the Master didn’t stop smiling.  
“AGH! STOP IT!”  
“When have I ever listened to you telling me to stop it?”  
“Right, well, that makes my mind up for me then.”  
“What?” The Master’s smile faded as the Doctor glared at him, and Amy and Rory exchanged glances.   
“No…”  
“Yes!” The Doctor said, and ran over to the Master pinning him up against the console.   
“Get off me!”  
“No way! OW! That isn’t going to make me get off!”

The Master started to laugh, and the Doctor looked confused, “What?”  
“Oh you really shouldn’t have connected with my head. I see what you’re thinking.”  
“Shut up, and get out of there!”  
The Master looked over at Amy, “Oh if you could see the things that go on in there, you’d be shocked.”  
“Shush! It’s not like that. You just… anyway, why am I talking?”  
Amy wanted to know what was happening now, “No, what did he do?”  
“Nothing, Amy!” The Doctor said, steering the Master over to the console.   
“Oh, really. Can I tell her?”  
“No, shush, it was nothing. I’m just not used to Timelord… no. Stop talking!”  
While the Doctor was floundering through conversation, he was attaching the Master to the main console; and through his mocking, the Master didn’t actually notice.   
“I will tell her. Aww, you’re like a teenager, can you not cope with Timelord hormones?”  
Rory started to laugh, “Oh my god!”  
Amy looked from the Master to him, “What, am I missing something?”  
The Doctor looked up, “NO! Stop the gossiping, all of you.”   
“Why should I?” The Master said, gleefully turning towards the Doctor.  
“Because gossiping makes you miss things.”

The Doctor stepped back as the Master looked down to his arm which was wired up to the console.  
“No! I didn’t say you could do that! That’s not fair!”  
“Tantrum, is it? Who’s like a teenager now?”  
The Doctor looked at Amy and Rory, “Sorry, this isn’t going to be pretty.”  
He pushed down a button, and the Master screamed.   
“What are you doing to him?” Amy said, pulling Rory backwards with her to get out of the way of the electric field surrounding the Master.   
“Well, you wouldn’t know it, but I’m doing him a favour. In the state he’s in now, he can’t regenerate, and he’s constantly dying.”  
“I don’t mean to sound stupid, but what’s regeneration?” Rory shouted over the Master’s screams.  
“Timelords can cheat death, we just change every cell in our body, become another person. It stops us dying, but he can’t do that because the way he resurrected himself went wrong. Remember when that prison blew up?”  
Amy and Rory nodded, “Well that was him. Making a mess of things as usual. He brought himself back out of death, so he’s constantly dying. But I’m fixing him. And making sure he can’t electric shock me every 5 minutes because I could see already that that was going to get very irritating.”  
“So you’re fixing him?”  
“Yeah, and stopping him from dying, because the more life-force he used, the weaker he was getting. But he doesn’t play nicely, and wouldn’t accept help until he was practically dead, which could mean months of petty electric shocks and other stupid tricks. So I took matters into my own hands.”  
There was a beep, and the electric field stopped. The Master’s body sort of flopped down after being so tense against the pain, and panting he lifted his head up slightly to look at the Doctor.  
“That really hurt,” he snarled.   
“And I bet it feels better now that you’re not dying!” The Doctor said, cheerily, unhooking all of the wires.  
“I didn’t want help yet!”  
“Then you shouldn’t’ve been so immature, shocking me all of the time, should you?”  
“You’re no fun, at all!”  
“I know.”   
The Master fell forward into the Doctor’s arms, and the Doctor raised his eyebrows.  
“Oh, what are you thinking?”  
“That’s not fair, I’m weak, I can’t guard myself.”  
“Amy, do you want to know what he’s thinking?” The Doctor said mockingly, and the Master pushed him backwards, growling slightly and swaying before gaining his balance.  
“Not. Fair. Get out of my head!”  
“Exactly. Now, are we going to keep each others secrets and stop abusing the psychic link, or do I have to walk 10 feet away from you?”  
“You’re a truly horrible man, Doctor.” The Master said, but he smirked at the same time.  
“Am I though?”

Amy looked at Rory, who was smiling, “I still think I’m missing something!”  
“Don’t worry about it.” Rory said, shaking his head.   
Amy scowled, crossed her arms and pouted, shaking off Rory’s arm around her shoulders. She never did take well to not being involved in a joke, or not knowing what was happening around her. She sniffed, and then said, in her best huffy voice;  
“So, do we get to go outside now, or what?”


	5. Chapter 5

They stepped out of the TARDIS, and blinked into the light. Amy gasped and grabbed Rory’s arm, both of them smiling their heads off.  
“Wow!” she said, looking at the Doctor, “Where are we?”  
The Doctor jumped up and down on the spot a couple of times and then looked at the Master, “Not sure.”  
The Master shrugged too, and they both exchanged a slight glance of concern before smirking.  
“Never been here before!”  
“Wow!” Amy said again. “It’s beautiful!”  
They stood in contemplation for a few minutes, looking round. The sky had two suns – once closer than the other, and the moon was huge in the sky, which was so blue that it was almost purple. Behind them were hills covered in forest, and the patch of field they were standing on was perfectly green, with batches of purple and pink flowers. In the distance you could see the sea meeting the horizon, a perfect turquoise colour, one of the suns making the top shimmer gold.   
Amy grabbed the Doctor’s hand, “This is too perfect!” and the Doctor smiled. The Master, who was standing near Rory, muttered “exactly. Way too perfect.”  
The Doctor shot him a warning glance, and then turned back to Amy, who hadn’t heard. Rory, on the other hand, had. As they followed the Doctor and Amy who had set off towards the ocean, the smell of the flowers even more fragrant as they walked over them, he hung back with the Master and said, worried, “What did you mean by that?”  
The Master shook his head, “it’s nothing.”  
“Yeah, it is though.”  
“It just, doesn’t feel right you know. It’s like something out of a fairytale.”  
“I know what you mean.”   
They stopped as they heard a noise behind them, and both shuddered at once as they turned to stare towards the dark bit of the woods which the noise had come from.  
“Someone just waked over my grave.” Rory said, jokingly. And the Master nodded,   
“Strange, someone just walked over mine.”  
“You heard that noise right?”  
“Yep.”  
“Little bit worried now. I’m like… I dunno, expecting some kind of witch to pop up from the ground and try to sell us poison apples or something.”  
The Master laughed, Rory was a pretty cool guy once you got to know him. Then he felt the bracelet around his wrist vibrate. They both looked at it.  
“Shit!” The Master said, and ran in the direction that the Doctor had left, with Rory following close behind after shouting, “Don’t leave me!”

They’d sat on the beach for a while before the Master and the Doctor started to get twitchy. Amy was happy sunbathing, as the climate, like everything else, was pretty perfect. Rory had skimmed some rocks with the Master for a while, but they’d soon got bored and sat down with the Doctor, sighing.   
Amy opened one eye after a particularly loud sigh from the Doctor, who was sitting digging a hole in the sand.  
“What?”  
“How can you just sit there? Are you not bored?”  
“No. I’m sunbathing. Durh.”  
He sighed again.  
“Oh for God’s sake, if you want to go exploring, just leave me here. I’ll be fine.”  
The Doctor hesitated. “I’m not sure…”  
Amy rolled her eyes, and then closed them again.   
“Seriously Doctor, what is there here to hurt me?”   
“Okay, just promise me, if you find anything – go back to the TARDIS.”  
Amy nodded, and the Doctor turned to Rory.   
“You coming?”  
Rory looked at Amy and shook his head, “Nah, I’d rather sunbathe.”  
The Doctor shrugged, “Suit yourself.” He didn’t notice the Master raise his eyebrows at Rory, who looked pointedly back, unspoken warnings passing between them.   
“Just… be careful.” The Doctor said, as he set off, the Master following behind him.  
“Always am Doctor, always am.”

The Doctor and the Master walked beyond the TARDIS and towards the woods behind it, both not really knowing what to say, and therefore both keeping quiet, feeling slightly awkward, as they recalled that the last time they’d been alone together they’d nearly killed each other.   
“I thought you might’ve tried to kill me by now, at least!” the Doctor said, and the Master shrugged.   
“Can’t be bothered.”  
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, “That’s not like you.”  
“I know, I’ll get back into it eventually, I’m just taking a break right now.”   
The Doctor laughed, “It’s like old times, isn’t it?”  
“Mmm.”  
There was another awkward silence, “look, Master.”  
“No, I don’t really want to hear it.”  
“I wasn’t -”  
“Shh.”  
“I just -”  
“No, seriously, shut up!”   
The Master pulled the Doctor behind a tree, as a creature lumbered past. They both looked out from their hiding place at it, completely confused.  
“What the hell is that?” The Master whispered, and the Doctor replied, “I have no idea.”

Amy was pretty comfortable where she was lying, and therefore was slightly annoyed when she heard the sound of hooves moving along the more pebbly part of the beach near to where they were sitting. She’d been sure this place was deserted, so a local pony-trekker wasn’t exactly welcome to her when she was half asleep. She sat up, opening her eyes, and gasped – reaching over to hit Rory who was asleep. “Oh my God!” she said, and poked him again. He jumped awake and looked at Amy, clearly annoyed for the interruption. She pointed towards where she was looking, and Rory looked too, and he also gasped.  
Walking towards them across the beach was, undoubtedly, a unicorn.   
“Rory… that’s…”  
“It can’t be!”  
“We’re on another planet! Of course it can!”  
They both stood up, cautiously, and it stopped dead, its long white mane fluttering in the slight breeze. It was so white that it seemed to radiate light from its body, and it was so beautiful. They looked at each other, smiling, and Rory said “I wish I had a camera.”   
When they looked back, it had started pawing the ground, and Rory put his hand in front of Amy.  
“It’s okay, it’s just a bit scared.” She said without looking at it. “Don’t make eye contact.”  
“Amy…”  
“Seriously Rory, its okay.”  
“Amy, look!”  
Amy looked back at the unicorn and noticed that its eyes had turned red, and its body was darkening. Its horn seemed to be sharper, and it was pointing it at them. Its body turned completely black as it got ready to charge, and Rory started to pull Amy backwards, getting quicker as the creature started to get more annoyed. They broke into a run as it snorted, and Rory pulled them behind a near-by rock.  
“What the hell!?” 

“That looks like a Quanlier,” the Doctor whispered.  
“It can’t be! They don’t exist!”  
“This planet doesn’t exist!”  
“I know, there’s something wrong here, and you just decided to stay like the idiot you are!” the Master said, warily looking at the creature that was disappearing into the black of the trees. The creature with a human torso, head of a wolf, and legs of a jackal; the creature that shouldn’t exist.  
“You can feel it too right?” he said, looking back to the Doctor, his anger forgotten.  
“Mmm, yeah, there’s definitely something weird going on.”  
The planet didn’t seem so welcoming anymore. It felt like they were being watched, and they both moved closer together, neither of them knowing, or meaning to. Everything had eyes, the temperature had dropped, and the breeze wasn’t so peaceful anymore. In fact, the rustle of leaves was the only sound they could hear – something they had failed to be worried about before.  
“We need to get back to Amy and Rory.”  
“We need to get off this planet.”  
The Doctor nodded, and then looked around.  
“Which way is back?”  
The Master pointed, “That way.”  
“Oh.”  
“Why?”  
“Just I thought it was this way.” He said, facing the opposite direction.  
The Master growled, “If you’ve gotten me lost…”  
“It’ll be fine, Master, it always is. We’ll try my way first!”  
The Master sighed, and followed the Doctor – but only because he had to. 

Rory peered over the rock.  
“Is it still there?” Amy whispered.  
“What, the demon horse from hell? Yeah, it’s still there!”  
“We just have to wait until the Doctor gets back.”  
“And how long will that be?!” Rory exclaimed, sitting back down. “I’m getting cramp in my legs already!”  
“Its fine, it can’t get to us.”  
They heard a screech, and Rory jumped.  
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me! What was that?”  
Amy gulped, “I’m not sure.”  
“Wonderful. We’re stuck in between two rocks, surrounded by scary creatures, on a planet that the Master said was dodgy!”  
“What?”  
Rory stopped abruptly. “Nothing.”  
“No, what did you say?”  
“He just… had a feeling.”  
“And he didn’t share this ‘feeling’?”  
“I’m pretty sure the Doctor knew.”  
“I’m gonna kill him.”  
“Not if he doesn’t get himself killed first.” Rory said, sulkily as he listened to the horse pacing around the rocks beside him. 

They were now walking through mist, and the Master was very sure that this wasn’t the way they came. The forest was deeper, darker, the silence more absolute.  
“Doctor, honestly, we’re going the wrong way.”  
“I think you may be right.”  
“So, turn round.” The Master said, but the Doctor kept walking. “Doctor?”   
“I just need to see something…”  
“What the hell?”   
There was a clearing up ahead; the Master could make that out through the darkness and the mist. A pinprick of light was visible, so small, and yet so blinding, that he couldn’t look into it.  
“Doctor,” he said, warningly. “I don’t think we should walk towards the light.”  
“The light…” the Doctor repeated, mesmerised.   
The Master was worried now, “why are you walking towards the light?”  
“Light…” the Doctor repeated, and the Master sighed. He kicked the Doctor’s legs, and he fell over.  
“You’re not a moth. Now come on, we’re turning round.”  
The Master had counted on the fall breaking the contact the Doctor had with the light, but it hadn’t. Next thing he knew, he felt the Doctor’s fist colliding with the back of his head, and he fell to the ground, while everything went black. 

There was another screech, and Rory huddled closer to the wall. Amy looked over at him and laughed.  
“What?” he said, huffily, and she shook her head.  
“You just look so… scared.”  
“Scared? No, I’m having the time of my life here! In the cold, between two rocks with the devils pet pony outside waiting to gore me with its horn!”  
Amy sighed, “The Doctor -”  
“The Doctor got us in this mess! I should have listened to the Master!”  
“Oh, really, you should have?” Amy said, jealously. “Well why didn’t you then?”  
“Why are you getting so defensive when I mention the Master?”  
“Oh, I dunno, probably just something about you taking sides with a psychopath!”  
“That psychopath wanted to leave, your Doctor didn’t!”   
Amy glared at Rory and shuffled as far away from him as she could get. He shook his head, and groaned.  
“What?”  
“Something’s definitely wrong. Do you not feel that?”  
Amy was set on her huff, “Feel what?”  
“That thing inside you, that burning, making you want to fight and scream and hurt people.”  
Amy’s eyes widened. She did feel that, “I think we need to get out of here.”  
“How?!”  
“Make a run for it!”  
“It’s a horse! It can run faster than us!”  
“Then, we’ll distract it!”   
“And how do you plan on doing that?”  
Amy sat back, “I haven’t thought that far yet.”

The Master came back to consciousness, lying face down in the soil where he’d clearly been dragged by the Doctor. His head was pounding from where he’d been hit, and the whole world was spinning. He kept his eyes shut until everything righted itself, and then opened them. The Doctor was stood, facing the light, the mist still surrounding them.  
“Show me yourself! Please!”  
The Master groaned, and stood up, “Doctor, don’t.”  
The Doctor turned round, and blankly looked at him.  
“Oh come on, it’s obvious that it’s inside your head. Stop being an idiot.”  
The Doctor growled at him, and turned back round to face the source of the light. As the mist started to get thinner, the Master started to panic.   
“Doctor, come on. Please.”  
“No, I want to look at it!”  
The Master walked towards him, but it was like walking in slow motion. It couldn’t get a grip on him, but it was trying. Whatever it was, it hurt it more to get into the Master’s head than it did the Doctor’s, and it was more of a struggle. The Master tried to think of their differences, but there weren’t too many. Maybe it was his corruption, his evil – and yet, the Doctor wasn’t far off – no matter how much he kidded himself. It was something else. The Master cleared his head, and then heard it. He smirked, the drums, of course – there was already too much insanity going on in his head; it couldn’t get hold of him. He focused on them, and it kept his head free from influence. He was only feet from the Doctor now, but the mist was almost gone, the shining light that the Master couldn’t bring himself to look at but which the Doctor was staring into was shaping into a form, and he couldn’t let the Doctor look at it, because if he did – it would be really bad.   
“Doctor, don’t look at it. If you do, you’ll die.”  
The Doctor continued to stare at it, and the Master could sense the being gloating, he growled, no one gloated at him. He was the Master, he always won. There had to be a way. Had to be.   
The being was becoming clearer to the Doctor now, and he sensed its peace and its beauty. He wanted that, he wanted to be at peace, wanted to join with it. He barely heard the Master trying to talk him out of it, he didn’t realise that he was generating a force field that physically stopped the Master from touching him. He didn’t listen when he heard the Master say that this thing was evil, because it was telling him not to listen. That the Master was the evil one. It was making him happy, and that was all that mattered. He forgot about Amy and Rory, he forgot about everything. All he wanted was to be here now, with this being made of light, he wanted to worship it and be a part of it forever.  
The Master was starting to feel hopeless, starting to despair, as he stood – more alone than ever. He could just leave the Doctor here, let him die. Just walk away, steal the TARDIS, and go elsewhere. Carry out everything he ever wanted to without the Doctor getting in the way… just go! Why wasn’t he leaving? He swore in a dead language, and felt the barrier around the Doctor weakening; he walked forward, and felt that the creature didn’t like this.   
_“I thought I said not to look, dick.”_ The Master said, and the Doctor was so shocked to hear spoken Gallifreyan that he spun round to face the Master. The creature shrieked in anger, its cry echoing around the clearing, and it shot a bolt of fire at the Doctor.   
The Master noticed, and saw that the Doctor wouldn’t so knocked him out of the way, getting his arm pretty badly burnt in the process. He dragged the Doctor back to his feet before he hit the ground, and pulled him in the direction he knew was right, as darkness surrounded them. Darkness so powerful that he could barely breathe. 

Amy and Rory noticed the sky getting dark above them, and heard the horse’s frantic whinny as it galloped for cover. They looked at each other, and took the opportunity to run for the TARDIS as the world closed in around them. They were too far away to hear what was happening, but they saw the Master roughly pulling the Doctor towards the TARDIS. 

Once the Master saw the TARDIS, he let the Doctor fall. His arm was bleeding where he’d been burnt, and he was so angry he could barely talk. He saw Rory and Amy running towards them as the two suns burnt out and everything started to freeze in a circle where they were the epicentre. There were no stars, no noise, just a feeling of compression. He turned to the Doctor and snarled.  
 _“Last time I save you. You always were a fucking idiot.”_  
And then he turned, and walked into the TARDIS, leaving the Doctor on the floor.

Amy and Rory were just close enough to hear the Master snarl something to the Doctor in a language neither of them could understand. They didn’t stop to ask what it meant, as they could sense the urgency, and so Rory picked the Doctor up off the floor, Amy holding the doors, and half carried him into the TARDIS, where he pushed a few buttons, and then fell to the floor, panting.  
“Doctor, what happened?” Amy asked.  
The Doctor stood up and walked off into the TARDIS without answering her question.

* * *

Okay so this one's a bit sticky. I apologise. I had already wrote the ending by this point and just wanted to bridge the gaps. Hopefully the last chapter will be worth this one.


	6. Chapter 6

Amy knocked on the door, but got no reply from the Doctor. She sighed to herself, dear me, and she thought her and Rory’s domestics were bad! Well, he could either gonna sulk and they’d get nowhere, or she could go in, talk him round, and then everything would be fine. At least she hoped it would be - the oppression was enough to make even the TARDIS with its huge interior feel claustrophobic.   
She knocked again, still no reply. Why did he have to cut her out like this? He’d had an argument with the Master, they didn’t know what about as they weren’t there, and the Master had stormed back into the TARDIS after dropping the Doctor, and as soon as he was inside mysteriously vanished and not been seen by any of them for a couple of days. Well, not by her or the Doctor anyway, she wasn’t so sure about Rory – he said that he hadn’t seen the Master, but they got on well, so she suspected that he might be sneaking off and smuggling him food. This made her slightly angry, and she wasn’t sure why.  
She knocked again; and, as she expected the Doctor didn’t respond.   
“You know I’m gonna get bored of knocking and just come in anyway, don’t you?” she said. “I’m only knocking out of common courtesy incase you’re sat in your pants or something.” She waited a couple more moments, just, as she said, out of courtesy, and then opened the door.

The Doctor was sat in the dark, on the bed, his chin on his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs facing the back wall. If he’d noticed Amy entering the room, he hadn’t acknowledged it. She hesitated in the doorway, not really knowing what to do due to not really knowing what mood the Doctor was in. He could switch from being completely depressed and sulky to shouting in a heartbeat. But he had been in here for two days in this state, so she decided to bite the bullet and went and sat down on the side of the bed.  
The Doctor jumped slightly when he felt the mattress shift down, and looked up, a brief flicker of hope appearing across his features before disappearing when he saw Amy sitting beside him and not the Master. She raised her eyebrows as he put his head back onto his knees.  
“Okay, so I’m guessing I wasn’t your first choice.”  
He looked back at her, “What?”  
His voice was husky from lack of use, and he cleared his throat afterwards. Amy noticed how defeated he sounded though, how he seemed to have deflated without the hope that usually propped up his personality.  
“Oh come on, there’s no hiding that level of disappointment,” she said, trying to make light of the situation. She pushed him slightly, “come on Doctor, what’s wrong with you?”  
“Hmm?”  
“You’ve been sat here on your own for two days now. “  
“Two days?” he repeated, like it wasn’t registering.  
“Yeah two days! We’re running out of milk.”   
“Oh.” He said in a flat sort of way, like he didn’t care.   
“You could at least sound a little more caring, I don’t know how I’m going to cope without tea and cereal.” She said, smiling again in the hope that the Doctor would lighten up and take the joke. He didn’t.  
There was silence for a couple of moments, and then the Doctor sighed. Amy swung her legs up on to the bed so that she was facing the same wall that the Doctor was.   
“Pretty interesting wall, eh?” she said, looking at the featureless surface, thinking that even if there was a special feature, you wouldn’t be able to see it in this light – or lack of it, as it went. She looked at him as she was once again greeted with silence, and a general feeling of despair.   
“You’re never like this.”  
He laughed a short humourless laugh. “How would you know what I’m like?”  
The rudeness threw her.   
“Because you hold us together. You’re the Doctor; you go around with energy and save things. You don’t sit, and sulk in a dark bedroom after an argument; you go out and fix it – just like you fix everything else.”  
“You can’t fix some things.” He said darkly.  
“That’s not you.”  
He looked up at her, “how do you know who or what I am?”

Outside the door, the Master stood, leaning against the wall, listening to the conversation inside. He put his head against the wall as he heard the Doctor’s voice. It looked like he’d done it, defeated him, he’d finally won. And yet… it didn’t feel like he’d expected. Hurting the Doctor, he’d expected a rush of pleasure, to smile and jump up and down and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. But he didn’t feel like laughing, eavesdropping in the corridor with his eyes closed after two days of wandering round the TARDIS aimlessly trying not to bump into anyone or be seen. The drums had quietened when he was on the planet, he’d felt included – he looked down at his burnt arm – even quieter when he’d saved the Doctor, and even now, he didn’t really know why he’d done that. He just did. It had made him angry, and he needed to get away from the Doctor, but didn’t have the energy to leave – which confused him furthur. And now, two days later, he was standing with his head against the cool wall of the TARDIS because the drums were pounding so loudly that it was making him want to scream, and kick things, and just hurt something else as much as it was hurting him. Instead, he pushed the bloodlust down, and just listened to what the Doctor was saying, at first believing that this would make the drums stop – but now pretty sure that the Doctor’s pain wasn’t going to help, he was just listening. 

“Don’t be like that,” Amy said the hurt evident in her voice. “Please.”  
The Doctor looked at her, slightly shocked. “I’m sorry.”  
“Just talk to me, that’s all I’m asking. Please talk to me and we’ll fix it. Everything can get better,” she said hurriedly, trying to get her words in before the Doctor flew off the handle again. She hoped that everything she was saying was true, and not only for the Doctor’s sake. He stayed silent again, and she put her arm around his shoulders.   
“You can tell me, a problem shared is a problem halved, or however that goes. It might make you feel better.” 

The Doctor exhaled heavily and then looked at Amy, moving closer to her so that he could lean on her for support, physically and emotionally. She moved her arm down his back so that it didn’t cramp up, but still kept the physical contact, and just waited; there was no point in rushing him. Especially in the fragile state he was in, he’d probably just tense up and shout again.   
“Me and the Master, we go way back. We used to play in the fields together when we were kids, but then we fell apart and none of it mattered anymore. I don’t know when we stopped being friends and started being enemies but when it happened, it left a bigger hole inside of me than when I lost the rest of my species. I’ve never… but it’s all pointless… when he came back, I felt like the past didn’t matter anymore. I felt like I could continue again, and stop pretending because he was there. But then he left me, he died, killed himself – or rather didn’t allow himself to live and I’ve never known anything hurt that much.”   
He swallowed, and Amy pulled him towards her slightly, he waited a few moments before continuing.  
“When I burnt his body, I felt like everything had finally crashed, everything I had built up on the shaky foundations just burnt with him, all fell down as the foundation of everything gave way. I begged him to stay, I begged him to regenerate… I couldn’t go on without… but I did. I just kept going, even though everything was hollow. I found a friend, and that helped me – I was a different man back then and I had to keep everything locked away. But then I lost my friend again, and decided enough was enough. I had to… too many people were getting hurt. At least that’s what I said my reasoning was. In fact, it was to stop me getting hurt again; it had happened too many times, and I felt like anymore would just make me break.”

Amy felt the Doctor’s pain through listening, and thought back to when the Master had first limped into the ship with the Doctor. She remembered how jealous she was, and how she wanted to share the pain, wanted to be included. She thought of both men crying as they connected their minds and wondered how amplified the sorrow was with a direct link to the raw emotion compared to what she was feeling now. She felt as though she couldn’t take anymore, and couldn’t bear to attempt to think of how it must feel to live with the losses of your planet, your home, your whole species and everyone you loved throughout 907 years of your own history.   
“And then he showed up again. I had a prophecy that told me I was going to die, ‘he will knock four times’ is what it said, and I knew… I thought I knew that it meant him. I raced back and found him again, in the state he was when we first found him. But this was a different time, and a different history, and again it ended badly – for him, not for me. He discovered why he was who he was, and he… he saved my life.”   
The Doctor’s face scrunched up as he choked out, “And you know what I did?”  
Any shook her head, horrified at the discomfort this was causing, scared to break the Doctor’s silence as he tried to compose himself, but equally scared to hear what he was going to say.  
“I forgot about him. I woke up, alive, and I was so happy, so preoccupied that I just forgot. And… I still ended up dying; I was an idiot, sentimental, a complete fool in my past regeneration. I found everyone who had ever left me, just to see them for one last time, and then I changed and crash landed in your garden.”  
He looked up, half smiling as he tried to hide how upset he was.   
“But I couldn’t forgive myself for forgetting about him, not really, once I’d remembered. So I put it too the back of my mind, pretended it didn’t happen and wiped the slate clean. Ran off into the night with you and hoped that everything would be okay. But then I found him again.”  
“In that bathroom?”  
“Yeah, he came to me. And… well, I thought I could make it better.”  
“You did.”  
“Did I?”

Amy sighed, “Just… I dunno, scan for him! Find him and apologise! If you go back as long as you say you do, if you’re such good friends then it can be fixed. Nothing is ever so broken that it can’t be saved. Not if you’re truly that close.”  
The Doctor shook his head, “no. it’s broken. It’s gone.”  
“You’re the Doctor, you can fix anything,” she said, with another attempt at a weak smile.  
“Not this.”  
Amy hated seeing him like this, knowing that there was only one person who could fix it and it wasn’t her. She hated how the Doctor had given up. She hated the Master for making it happen. And she hated him for having a greater hold on the Doctor than she did. She knew that she couldn’t have the Doctor, because she was already someone else’s, but she secretly liked the competing, the rivalry between the Doctor and Rory that made her feel special. When the Master was around, she didn’t feel as special anymore – and Rory’s attention, even though it was him she had chosen didn’t seem to cut it.   
She wanted the Doctor to love her, and he did, but he loved the Master in a different way, a much more powerful way, in a way she didn’t understand. And she never knew that love could hurt this much; could make you give up so much and could make you lose yourself so easily. And she didn’t want to say it out loud, because she didn’t know how the Doctor would interpret ‘love’. And maybe she didn’t want it to be true – especially if her definition of their relationship was wrong.  
“The Doctor I knew could fix everything.”  
“Well then I’m not him. I’ve been lying to you too.”  
“Tell him.”  
“Tell him what? I don’t even know where he is.”  
“Just...” she paused, trying to think of a way to say it. “Tell him.”

He looked up at her again.   
“I can’t tell him anything, half the time I don’t believe he’s real. Whenever I see him, I can’t believe it. It’s surreal. I’ve thought too many times that I’m the last one, and that I’m alone, and it just can’t be real – as it’d be too perfect. I’ll wake up one day, and I’ll be alone again.”  
“You have me, and Rory.”  
“I know. But…”  
“It isn’t the same.”  
“If you were the last… you’d know what I meant.”  
“I know.”   
Amy had began to accept it now, that she’d always be second best, and that it wasn’t anything she could do – unless she managed to alter her DNA and grow another heart. The bond she had with the Doctor was a completely different bond to what he had with the Master, and nothing she could do, or be, would ever change this. It made her sad, and yet, she was glad the Doctor had an equal. Even if said equal was a psychopath.  
“Every time I see him I think of them, and I think of Gallifrey. And he smells like it, even after all this time, his heart beats ‘Gallifrey’ and I can smell the trees and the fields where we used to run as kids. He makes me feel so much and I want to hold him, and hit him, and tear him apart to see his blood and taste it just to check that it has the right components. He makes me want to scream, and cry and laugh all at once and I…”  
The Doctor trailed off, but Amy knew what he was going to say.  
“And he scares me, he terrifies me. Not because of what he can do, or what he’s done, but because he has a power…” The Doctor trailed off.  
“And the thought of him leaving me again,” he shook his head.  
“Tell him.” she insisted.   
“He wouldn’t listen. He’d run away from it like he always has done. And I couldn’t… I just want him to be real.”  
“He is.”  
The Doctor shook his head, and Amy said, “What did he say to you?”  
“I just want him to be real.”

The Doctor turned away from Amy, and put his head back on his knees, staring back into the wall. She didn’t know what to do, or how to feel. She just felt empty. She wanted someone to hold her, to comfort her, but she knew she’d never be able to repeat any of this. She got off the bed, and started to walk towards the door. If the Doctor noticed it, he didn’t acknowledge it. he sat, just as he had been when she had entered the room, no indication of how he had made her feel, no inclination that he was going to get up and come back to life, nothing to show that he was himself again, or that the talking had helped in any way. She paused, and turned around to face his silhouetted figure,  
“I just want my Doctor back,” she said.  
No response.  
She walked through the corridors back to Rory with such purpose that she didn’t notice the Master’s figure retreat back into the shadows as she passed him.

The TARDIS was quiet when the Doctor finally left his room. His footsteps echoed as he wandered towards the control room and he was thankful that the bedrooms were on the other side of the TARDIS. He touched some of the controls as he passed them, almost an apology for him being away for so long, the familiar humming noises of the engine comforting him slightly. Although not enough, not as much as if he had walked into find his old friend sitting on the chair watching him. He sighed, feeling his chest tighten up again with the pain of loss. He wished he was a truly different man, and that he could forget about all of the things that haunted him, that he could really wipe the slate clean. But he couldn’t, so what was the point in wishing?  
He found himself in front of the porthole without aiming to be there; this was something he particularly liked about his new TARDIS. You could see outside without having to open the doors. She had brought them all to the site of a supernova, probably so that he’d work up the effort to save them or something. But he knew that was pointless as they were far enough away so that they wouldn’t be pulled in as what was once a huge star collapsed in on itself and expanded out to take everything in its system with it. The destruction was beautiful. Maybe she brought them here for the Master, as he would understand the beauty even more than the Doctor ever could. Or maybe he didn’t, maybe the Doctor could just learn to like chaos more than order – he’d never shunned entropy, just sort of preferred to apply negative rather than positive feedback. Maybe the Master saw the true beauty of the universe by causing pure destruction in his wake, and the Doctor was an idiot to try and fix all of the problems. They were just two sides of the same coin, and yet, so tiny that they shouldn’t be able to create a change, even though they both knew they could alter events much more than any other being could. Or could they? Timelord egos had always been a force to be reckoned with; perhaps they were smaller than they both thought. Just a myth, a story that was told throughout the ages.   
He was so busy musing that he didn’t notice the Master behind him. He stood, watching the Doctor, drums pounding in his head, not knowing whether to run or fight or cry. He’d never been so uncertain, so confused, and he hated it. He hated the power that the Doctor had on him as much as the Doctor hated the power the Master had on him. They were both stuck, the last members of their race, a pretty bloody past behind them, thrown together without realising why, without realising what the other was going through, and without realising the sheer extent of their need for each other. The Master cleared his throat, and the Doctor jumped. 

The Doctor spun round, to see the Master standing behind him, and almost smiled before he realised that something was definitely wrong. The Master looked torn, more mad than he had seemed in a long while, and the Doctor didn’t know what he was going to do. The Master was still undecided. They looked at each other for a long time, neither speaking, neither moving, until the Doctor noticed the Master’s hand clenched into a fist, hiding something.  
This was when he knew that the Master was going to leave him, and he swore he could feel his hearts breaking. He didn’t say a word, he couldn’t, he just hoped that whatever was in the Master’s hand was some kind of a weapon, and that he would use it on the Doctor before he left him. Because, now he realised, he couldn’t take it again, he couldn’t live without him, and if he was going to leave him, he’d rather that the Master just killed him than left him standing to carry on with a brave face and a smile, because there was no way that he could. It was impossible. The one and only thing that he had ever known was impossible was staring him right in the face; and he’d forgive the Master, because he always did. In fact, he’d welcome death like he’d welcomed his old friend rather than continue being the Doctor. As he truly didn’t know what he’d be without him. And he didn’t want to know.   
The Master looked down at his clenched fist, and made his mind up about what he was going to do. He walked towards the Doctor without saying a word, the Doctor didn’t speak either. He didn’t attempt to get into his mind and he didn’t need to because he could see everything the Doctor was thinking in his eyes. The Master winced, and a razor fell to the floor, splashing a small amount of blood on to the glass along with it. The Doctor followed its fall, and then looked up to the Master, who was standing inches from his own body, shocked to see the red, unsure what was going to happen next. 

The Master held out his hand and put it up to the Doctor’s mouth. He licked his lips to get rid of the blood, tasting the artron energy in it as he did. He didn’t know how the Master had heard the conversation between himself and Amy, and he found didn’t care to ask when the Master put his arms round the him, and he closed his eyes to take in the smell of Gallifrey, the smell of home. He put his arms around the Master, and his head on his shoulder and they just stood there, in the light of a burning supernova, unsaid apologies and forgiveness moving around them. The Doctor’s chest relaxed, and the hollow core he had carried for so long started to be filled, as the drums inside the Master’s head calmed down, and he knew he’d done the right thing. They both smiled without knowing that the other was; as two very different, and yet very similar pains seemed to melt into nothing. While they stood and felt their hearts beat together the Master broke the silence with words only they could understand.   
_“Is this real enough for you yet?”_

* * *

.:The End!:.  
Thanks for reading and I hope you liked it :)  
I might continue on in the future, but it'll be in another story if anything.


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